Just linking to this post from Eric Morton/Epic Meepo
on the ethics of providing a service to users to generate content, that then can be sold by Paizo (and through DrivethruCards) without payment to the creator.
Here is the post :
If I purchase a community-created card, does the community member who designed that card earn a percentage of that sale?No, at least not at this time.
One of our future feature sets will be to allow for that to happen, but this wasn't part of our initial release scope coding.
Also we (Paizo and DriveThru) want to keep the pricing of these cards as low as possible to keep them accessible to the community, so even when we develop that "royalty" capability/feature, it's unknown if we'd implement it here or not.
Steve
DriveThruIn that case, I have to object to this Card Creator on ethical grounds.
DriveThru earns money on each sale, which is perfectly fair and ethical, since Drive Thru is providing a service by printing and distributing these cards. There's nothing wrong with that part of the process.
The providers of the stock art earn money each time someone licenses their artwork, which is perfectly fair and ethical, since artists have the right to profit from their own intellectual property. There's nothing wrong with that part of the process.
But then we get to the part where Paizo is asking amateur designers to transfer ownership of their intellectual property to Paizo without compensation. And we're not talking about messageboard posts here. We're talking about designers putting time and effort into the creation of published, proprietary, Paizo-owned products without getting paid for their work.
That would be tolerable if the designers retained full ownership (or even a copyleft) of the intellectual property they created while doing this volunteer work for Paizo, Inc., but the designers don't even get that. They are donating their time (and potentially paying for licenses) to create intellectual property owned by a for-profit corporation that is not their employer.
That is exploitative, and helps perpetuate a culture where creative workers are conditioned to expect no compensation for work they perform on behalf of others. I realize this was probably not anyone's intention when setting up this project, but it is still the end result. As someone who believes artists should receive fair compensation for any work they perform that generates revenue for any party, I cannot support this Card Creator.
So say a user creates art specifically for a pathfinder card (or chooses an old piece of art they made) and uploads it. Do they lose rights to that art?
Not sure. I think the CUP/Community Use Policy is more about protecting Paizo's rights to their IP, which is fine.
The part I have a problem with is the final point Eric makes:
As someone who believes artists should receive fair compensation for any work they perform that generates revenue for any party...
I get that many folks don't really care about the ethics, or the ramifications of the Card Creator - they just want to be able to create their own cards, and possibly, share them with other fans. Which is great.
Unfortunately, as currently set up, the Card Creator allows Paizo to generate profit from the enthusiasm of its fans - essentially to make fans pay for ideas created by other fans, and profit thereby.
Which I do not think is an ethical business model.
I think one thing to keep in mind is that the cards are already available in the community use policy. That already prohibits you from selling your own cards if you use the card templates. This is just taking that a step further and making it so you can have your cards printed or distributed in printed form by a professional printer.
So even if you took DriveThru out of the equation, you wouldn't be allowed to sell your cards to other people if you used the templates. And I think making your cards available to the community is optional, so if you don't want other people buying your card (and therefore anyone else making money off your card except when you buy it) you can just not make it available to the community. So the "who makes money off this" doesn't seem like as much of an issue to me.
(And by the way, are we even sure Paizo makes any money off this and not just DriveThru?)
As for the question about owning rights, it looks to me like you are giving them the rights to the card you create. So I don't think you are giving up the rights to art you create in its entirety, just as it appears as part of the card. I don't think it looks like you are saying "Here is this piece of art I made separate from the card, you can use it however you want."
Though I freely admit I'm no lawyer and I've never created anything worth enough to care about or investigate rights and trademarks, so all that comes from my limited understanding. Though I think I understand where your concerns are coming from, since people that can make art and earn forum tags from RPG Superstar competitions are way more talented then me and probably have some rights worth protecting.
Yeah I mean if the issue is "you give up your rights to the text you wrote that ended up on the card" I don't see what the big deal is. A community card was never going to make any money for the creator of the card.
I absolutely agree with fair compensation for artists, but this isn't your typical abusing-artists situation where someone creates free art for a company that they then profit on.
This is creating some fan made rules for a game that you never had any rights to in the first place. And now Paizo has spent a lot of time and money facilitating the process of making those fan made rules more official looking and easy to use, and allowing users to print out their own cards for a very reasonable fee. I seriously doubt they see much profit, if any, off of that fee.
IF at some point Paizo starts taking a bunch community created content and reselling it as an Official Paizo Product, and IF the original author didn't get a kickback, I could see there being a controversy. But that's not happening, and even then I'm not sure I could bring myself to get super upset about it, depending on the circumstances / terms of service.
Unfortunately, as currently set up, the Card Creator allows Paizo to generate profit from the enthusiasm of its fans - essentially to make fans pay for ideas created by other fans, and profit thereby.
But they're not. Fans can access other fans cards for free, and print them out themselves for free. It's only if you want to use this service (which wouldn't have existed without Paizo generously taking the time/money to create it in partnershp with DriveThruCards) to print out an official looking version of the card do they charge a fee. And it's not clear that Paizo even makes a profit off that.
The way I see it, if Paizo was interested in profiting from community-generated content, they wouldn't have:
1) made a community use policy at all
2) published templates and guides for print-at-home solutions
3) allowed for "private" card printing, wherein only the card's creator has access to whatever content is on the print.
As a corollary, in the LOTR LCG community, there were a bunch of community created quests going around. FFG looked at the quality iof some of these ( which were outstanding both in story and chosen card art) and offered design gigs to at least one creator I know of
I see it this way. Paizo has made its templates available for the community to use. They partnered with a site that can produce cards that will integrate seamlessly with their official product. YOU choose whether or not you want your
"Intellectual property" shared with the community who can then pay to have your cards printed for use in their home game.
Now If Paizo takes Your cards and stuffs them in a package and sells them then yes you should be compensated at some level. But this is not the same.
If you don't like it you have options.
1. Continue printing cards at home that don't integrate or use Proxies
2. Use the service to print the cards you want and keep them private.
3. Or use all your great ideas(based on an intellectual property you do not own) that you feel you should be compensated for and create and publish your own game and watch that money roll in....or not.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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@OSW: I personally don't understand the issue, as long as those of us who are making the cards and making them available to the public are aware that we're giving away our ideas.
I have no issue with making content for free for the public... we (as in you, me, and others together) have been doing that for years with the Multiclass Archetypes. The cost of printing the cards is simply that... a service to print the cards. If I had the means and photoshop skills to make the cards in Photoshop and then have them printed by FedEx, I might consider it, but this makes it much more conveneint for me.
The fact that I can share the cards with the rest of the community is just a bonus for me... I'm working on a full 60-card "deck 7" that I hope to eventually have printed by DriveThru (once all the card types are available) and share with the community.
So anyway, I really don't see an issue with the way this is being handled. You don't HAVE to make your cards available to the community to buy... you just CAN... and I am very glad that I CAN do so. :)
I personally don't understand the issue, as long as those of us who are making the cards and making them available to the public are aware that we're giving away our ideas.
This is my feeling as well. I think its pretty clear that you are giving Paizo the right to do as they please with your contributed content. I would hope they would at least credit the contributor if they decide to use your contribution in the "official" game, but the language seems clear enough that they are not required to. If you do not want this to happen, then do not contribute.
That's not meant to be a mean response, but rather genuine advice, whether you are putting your contribution in the card creator or posting it in the forums. It is Paioz's responsibility to understand and protect their intellectual property. It is your responsibility to protect yours if you feel it needs protection.
I'm not necessarily taking a side on this issue, but I do think I at least understand the issue, and I'll try to reframe it for those that are having an issue. (TLDR version, it could set a bad precedent re: artist rights).
The problem is not necessarily with this particular process, but more the precedent, and the legal murkiness that it creates. There has been a long-standing issue across many media wherein creators gave up the rights to their work as part of an arrangement with a company (comics especially were infamous for this in the 70s and 80s). Because of this, in recent years, there has been a major backlash regarding the rights of creators/artists and their own property, which in many ways is still ongoing.
The people who were involved with the struggle to gain those IP rights, or who have benefited from them, will tend to look with skepticism on any project, such as this one, which ostensibly provides profit to a company for creative works without compensating the creators of said work. Essentially, by allowing your work to be given away for free, you serve to undermine the efforts of artists to control their own work and licenses.
Again, I don't know enough about art licensing or copyright law to state if this is genuinely an issue, but the issue is murky enough that I can understand someone being concerned about the business ethics at work here.
Side point: There was discussion in the Blog thread about whether the art is given over, or if the license is retained by the owner. I literally will not make cards on this service (that I otherwise love) until that part is settled, because a lot of my designs that I would love to be made have art that I commissioned from a friend, and I don't want to put her IP at risk.
f Disney spent time and money setting up a website where fans with 3D graphics skills could spend hours designing and rendering original, CG Stars Wars characters, I would expect those fans to receive fair compensation if Disney then ported the CG characters they created using Disney's website directly into the next Star Wars movie
Just wanted to point out that MMOs give you the tools to design characters all the time. Every MMO license agreement that I have read gives the company the rights to anything you create within that MMO, even if you delete it later. Its a sticky issue, to be sure, but not at all unprecedented.
This is creating some fan made rules for a game that you never had any rights to in the first place. And now Paizo has spent a lot of time and money facilitating the process of making those fan made rules more official looking and easy to use, and allowing users to print out their own cards for a very reasonable fee. I seriously doubt they see much profit, if any, off of that fee.
Except these "fan made rules" are peoples intellectual property that they have taken the time to design, create and possibly playtest. And if anther party is going to profit by that then they should see some of that profit.
Fans can access other fans cards for free, and print them out themselves for free. It's only if you want to use this service (which wouldn't have existed without Paizo generously taking the time/money to create it in partnershp with DriveThruCards) to print out an official looking version of the card do they charge a fee. And it's not clear that Paizo even makes a profit off that.
The cards fans are making are sold under the Paizo banner on Drivethru, and are thus directly profiting Paizo. Sure, fans could always share their stuff with each other, for free. This however, makes a very different arrangement whereby Paizo profits from the ideas of others.
@OSW: I personally don't understand the issue, as long as those of us who are making the cards and making them available to the public are aware that we're giving away our ideas.
Sure. I just don't think people are aware of the greater issue, or if they do, they are not bothered by it. Which is ok. For them. But not for those of us interested in the greater issue - the ramifications of such a process.
I have no issue with making content for free for the public... we (as in you, me, and others together) have been doing that for years with the Multiclass Archetypes.
Sure. But we never gave our stuff to Paizo to sell. Unless you count the ACG. ;P
The cost of printing the cards is simply that... a service to print the cards. If I had the means and photoshop skills to make the cards in Photoshop and then have them printed by FedEx, I might consider it, but this makes it much more conveneint for me.
The fact that I can share the cards with the rest of the community is just a bonus for me... I'm working on a full 60-card "deck 7" that I hope to eventually have printed by DriveThru (once all the card types are available) and share with the community.
And I'm sure Paizo is very happy to hear that you are extending their product, working unpaid, behind the scenes, to essentially create content for them to sell. One or two cards per creator doesn't sound like much "lost remuneration" to the creator, but as those eager fanbois and fangurlz on the fan-factory create more and more content, Paizo can just sit back and marvel at the new process whereby they get the fans to pay for material fans created. Ingenoious!
So anyway, I really don't see an issue with the way this is being handled. You don't HAVE to make your cards available to the community to buy... you just CAN... and I am very glad that I CAN do so. :)
And I'm just as glad to urge you not to. Look, I know you want to share your stuff with the community, and the template and eveything make it really pro-looking and inline with the original game, but there is something greater at stake here - creators rights to receive something that is valuable - value. Not just kudos and joy from fellow fans - because your work is being commodified by someone else at your expense.
Publisher, Chief Creative Officer
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Folks,
Thanks for raising some of these issues. Our chief Adventure Card Game staff is currently out of the office, but returns on Monday. I will bring this thread to his attention, and you can expect an official comment from Paizo on this shortly (i.e. "next week").
Thanks for your patience.
No problems Erik. Obviously I look forward to a resolution that promotes fair compensation for creators, but I also understand that I may not understand all of the components of this situation.
I'd really like all stakeholders to chime in on this - Paizo, PACG fans, PACG Card Creator users, Drivethru etc....
Wonder if OP will be happy if a resolution to this will be just taking away the card creator to avoid Legal issues...
Wonder if OP will be happy if a resolution to this will be just taking away the card creator to avoid Legal issues...
- I am never happy if vehicles that remove the obstacles to creativity are dismantled.
The card creator looks to be an awesome resource, and I commend it in and of itself as a device.
- I am never happy if creators are exploited.
As the card creator stands now, (and as I understand it) it is allowing Paizo to profit from the ideas of unpaid creators.
Are you certain Paizo is actually profiting from this though? It could very well be that the 0.50 just covers DriveThru's costs without Paizo actually seeing a penny of it.
I cannot actually find any Terms of Service/Terms of Use for the card creator outside of the Community Use Policy, until one exists I do not believe that the card creators are relinquishing any rights whatsoever because there is no agreement that says that they are. Under the text of the CUP the author is not assigning or forfeiting any of their IP rights to Paizo.
I agree that there are a plethora of legal grey areas that need to be sorted out here, ideally with the creation of a Terms of Use for the card creator that explicitly identifies what rights the author retains and what rights they are relinquishing or automatically granting a license to. I do not agree that it was the intent of Paizo to "exploit" the authors in the card creator, nor was it their intent to unfairly profit from this endeavor at the expense of the author. Instead, having the author not getting any money when the card is purchased was likely simply a cost-saving measure (see also first paragraph of my post).
At risk of confusing the issue, I'd be interested to know people's thoughts on a related issue with the card creator.
In the past I've created custom characters for this game, based around favourite characters from other fictional worlds. Evidently, I don't own the copyright for any of those franchises, but I generally work on the basis that if I'm creating something for personal use and I'm not making any money out of it, it's not harming anybody.
Now I wonder how this would work with the Card Creator. Would I suddenly find myself receiving solicitor's letters if I were to create a card for the PACG, and print it through DriveThru for Jon Snow, a Malcolm Reynolds or a Turin Turambar? - would the answer to this question chang eat all depending on whether or not I made the card "publicly available" (or whatever the term is)?
When i look at the issue, i cant resist to draw parallels to video game design. There you have your publishing way e.g. Steam (in this case DriveThru), but you also probably have a engine on which to build upon, which in this case would be the PACG. So Paizo absolutely has a solid reason to take a cut. On the other the rest of the cards (the art and text), is custom.
Probably the best solution (in my opinion) would be to allow to set the price of the cards or card packs by the author. So they could decide if they want to get paid for their creative work.
Now that said, i have no idea how much work and legal issues that would entail.
One other solution would be to take the PACG engine and make it avaiable for free (like the Unity engine or the OGL for 3rd edition). But that is something only Paizo and the author of the game itself can decide to do.
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I find this whole thread more than a little ridiculous.
If you don't want anybody else to profit from your own intellectual property, then you are still free to create your own cards in whatever way you like, and try and sell them yourself (as long as you abide by the rules as to what you can do with any other intellectual property you incorporate).
If you want to be able to create cards that mimic Paizo's look-and-feel to the extent that at a first glance they appear to be official Paizo-produced cards (which you aren't allowed to do under the Community Use policy), including the design on the back of the cards, you'll have to decide whether the conditions Paizo have set for access to this are acceptable (and whether the price being charged for a card is, in fact, anything more than the cost of printing and distribution).
I don't believe Paizo are planning on making any profit here by selling other people's intellectual property - anyone who thinks that has, IMO, an unrealistic and inflated view of the fair market value of their own contribution. And I say this from the viewpoint of someone whose entire living has been based around creating intellectual property; I'm a software engineer by trade (with a couple of patents to my name), and an amateur photographer who has sold photographs up to and including cover photographs.
Just because I've been able to make a living by marketing my skills in some areas, though, doesn't mean I insist on getting paid every time I take a photograph (or write a few lines of code) for somebody else.
One other solution would be to take the PACG engine and make it avaiable for free (like the Unity engine or the OGL for 3rd edition). But that is something only Paizo and the author of the game itself can decide to do.
This is most definitely not going to happen.
I find this whole thread more than a little ridiculous....
I don't believe Paizo are planning on making any profit here by selling other people's intellectual property - anyone who thinks that has, IMO, an unrealistic and inflated view of the fair market value of their own contribution.
This sooooo much.
This is like If I went to subway, asked them to make me a sandwich in a particular way. Told people how delicious it was. Those people decided to try it and then stood there waiting for Subway to give me my cut.
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Chief Technical Officer
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A topic just like this comes up every year when we do our RPG Superstar contest, in which contestants are required to transfer copyrights of their entries to us. (Epic Meepo, as an RPG Superstar veteran, I think you'll find that the answers here are pretty similar to the answers there.)
We're not taking ownership because we want to make money off of your work. We're taking ownership for our own legal protection. Imagine that somebody out there creates a a card for the Card Creator, and it just happens to be very similar to a card that Mike has designed for an upcoming release. By requiring Card Creator users to assign us the rights, we don't have to worry about people trying to sue us for "stealing" their ideas.
Speaking of stealing, I'm now going to paraphrase one of Sean K Reynolds' responses from a RPG Superstar thread from 2010:
Our designers aren't going to sift through Card Creator entries looking for cards to fill a hole in an upcoming set. They're perfectly capable of designing their own cards, and can likely do so faster than it would take to find a card in the Card Creator, develop it, and note the author's name for the credits.
That said, I know that Steve had some ideas about a community design contest in the future, so I won't say that we'll *never* do anything with the cards there—but I will say that *if* we do, we will make a good faith effort to contact, credit, and compensate the designer. We have done the same for a very small number of RPG Superstar entries that we republished. (And odds are good that if we do such a contest, it will involve looking at entries crafted specifically for the contest, not just picking stuff out of the library.)
On the topic of creators getting paid for copies of their cards being sold, that was something we talked about when we originally started discussing this with DriveThru, but they determined that implementing it wasn't feasible at this time. I cannot say whether or not it will change in the future. Either way, I can tell you that nobody is going to get rich off of the content in the Card Creator. If you're troubled about it, though, the answer is simple: don't make your cards public.
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I just want to add that Paizo is extremely good about crediting creators for their work, even when they don't really have to.
A few years back, my brother wrote a small supplement for a 3PP which detailed a number of fencing feats and combat maneuvres. Concurrently, another freelancer was writing material with the same theme but different mechanics for the original Campaign Setting hardcover. Even though it was clearly a case of independent development, and the mechanics were different, Paizo still cited my brother's article in the OGL of that book.
Creator rights are a hot-button issue these days, but I don't see this card generator as anything but a useful tool for players.
I find this whole thread more than a little ridiculous.
I don't think examining the ethics of the service in question is ridiculous at all.
If you don't want anybody else to profit from your own intellectual property, then you are still free to create your own cards in whatever way you like, and try and sell them yourself (as long as you abide by the rules as to what you can do with any other intellectual property you incorporate).
If you want to be able to create cards that mimic Paizo's look-and-feel to the extent that at a first glance they appear to be official Paizo-produced cards (which you aren't allowed to do under the Community Use policy), including the design on the back of the cards, you'll have to decide whether the conditions Paizo have set for access to this are acceptable (and whether the price being charged for a card is, in fact, anything more than the cost of printing and distribution).
I don't believe Paizo are planning on making any profit here by selling other people's intellectual property - anyone who thinks that has, IMO, an unrealistic and inflated view of the fair market value of their own contribution. And I say this from the viewpoint of someone whose entire living has been based around creating intellectual property; I'm a software engineer by trade (with a couple of patents to my name), and an amateur photographer who has sold photographs up to and including cover photographs.
I don't think I'm inflating my own creative worth, but I am interested in seeing what Paizo thinks of selling other people's creative endeavours, regardless of the added costs of printing and the lead up costs of setting up the templates and associated work that went intpo creating the service.
Just because I've been able to make a living by marketing my skills in some areas, though, doesn't mean I insist on getting paid every time I take a photograph (or write a few lines of code) for somebody else.
Well perhaps you should if your photographs or code are being sold. Or not - it is entirely up to you, and you seem to have a good idea of your worth and what younwill and won't do for free or for pay. And that's fine. I'm more concerned about the ramifications of this product when used by multiple users creating multiple products and receiving no compensation. I don't think I'm inflating anything at all.
I find this whole thread more than a little ridiculous....
I don't believe Paizo are planning on making any profit here by selling other people's intellectual property - anyone who thinks that has, IMO, an unrealistic and inflated view of the fair market value of their own contribution.
This sooooo much.
This is like If I went to subway, asked them to make me a sandwich in a particular way. Told people how delicious it was. Those people decided to try it and then stood there waiting for Subway to give me my cut.
Interesting analogy, but it only goes so far. This is not quite the same - it is more like multiple people taking the time and energy in designing (and possibly testing) multiple sandwiches, and....
actually I don't think the sandwich analogy works at all.
How about a recipe? Usually one person makes it, refines it through testing with other people, and publishes it via sharing with their friends or more formally on a website / book.
A topic just like this comes up every year when we do our RPG Superstar contest, in which contestants are required to transfer copyrights of their entries to us. (Epic Meepo, as an RPG Superstar veteran, I think you'll find that the answers here are pretty similar to the answers there.)
We're not taking ownership because we want to make money off of your work. We're taking ownership for our own legal protection.
I'm not saying Paizo is intentionally doing anything dodgy here, but I do think that has been the end result. Regardless of the reasons, the result is that Paizo is receiving profit from fan-created content. I don't think that is okay. I'm happy to be wrong about this - in that the card creator isn't making a profit for Paizo for fan-created content. Until then I stand by my understanding.
Imagine that somebody out there creates a a card for the Card Creator, and it just happens to be very similar to a card that Mike has designed for an upcoming release. By requiring Card Creator users to assign us the rights, we don't have to worry about people trying to sue us for "stealing" their ideas.
Speaking of stealing, I'm now going to paraphrase one of Sean K Reynolds' responses from a RPG Superstar thread from 2010:
Our designers aren't going to sift through Card Creator entries looking for cards to fill a hole in an upcoming set. They're perfectly capable of designing their own cards, and can likely do so faster than it would take to find a card in the Card Creator, develop it, and note the author's name for the credits.
As to the bolded part I'd just like to say that there is a huge difference between cards created by Paizo designers and those created by the community.
One the one hand, professional designers have the benefit of experience and also developers who live and breathe problem solving and error detection. However, they also suffer from editorial control preventing them, at times, from creating content that the editors and developers do not think is good for the game. And this is to the detriment of the creative expression of the game. Third party publishers of the TTRPG PF game have proved this time and time again - some of those 3PP designers work for Paizo, and find greater creative freedom outside of the constraints of the Paizo design parameters.
On the other hand, community/fan creators/designers do not have that "safety net" of experience or developer input, but they do have free reign when it comes to creativity. And at times that free reign results in horribly "broken" OR highly conceptual mechanics that with a few tweaks, could be fantastic. All of which goes under the Paizo banner, and can be developed by Paizo into cards/concepts/ideas that are more commodifiable. Why wouldn't (or shouldn't) creators desire to be treated as having "worth"?
For the record, if Paizo published every RPG Superstar entry whose creator revealed it to the public after the fact as a self-contained magic item card on DriveThruCards (which they legally can do), I would object just as strongly to the ethics of RPG Superstar. There's a big difference between, "We have to assume ownership of this donated content for our own legal protection," and "Since we have to assume ownership of this donated content, we may as well monetize it even though we didn't pay for it."
You've put it much more succinctly than I could have Eric.
But, as I've said, I doubt there's any malicious intent on Paizo's part. Also, it seems that very few other posters have issues with the Card Creator, so I'm just going to drop it. If everyone else is enjoying themselves and it's not causing me any direct harm, who am I to butt in and complain?
Well I would say you are an interested party with a desire to see a company you like operate with ethics.
If something is unethical, but no-one is complaining is it still unethical? I think here I'm concerned that this is a precedent that is not healthy.
I'm not on a crusade to paint Paizo as a monolithic entity out to exploit its fanbase. I just want to point out that I think it is exploiting its fanbase, and that both saddens and disappoints me.
Regardless of the reasons, the result is that Paizo is receiving profit from fan-created content.You continue to make this assertion, but I do not believe anybody has shown that this is, in fact, true.
Yes. I do keep making that assertion. Perhaps erroneously. Until such time as it is made clear that this is not what is going on I will think that it is the case. . I have made it very clear that as far as I understand it it looks to be a certain way.
It seems that the part that some people are finding questionable is that it's not just the card design that's being transferred over; it's the artwork that was placed on the card, too.
If someone designs an awesome dragon picture and they decide to place it on a card, then that awesome dragon artwork is now property of Paizo, whereas, only the card design should be property of Paizo, and the dragon artwork should be noted that it was licensed (for free) to Paizo by the agreement that the user uploaded and placed said dragon on the card.
The card design (text, values, etc) are perfectly fine to be owned by Paizo. Any original art, on the other hand, shouldn't.
It'd be quite easy for Paizo to adjust the agreement for the card creator to state that if you use original art, you're choosing to freely license it to them for an unlimited amount of time specifically for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game and agree that you will not be compensated for the license, but you retain ownership of the actual artwork.
I'm sure Paizo has a legal team that could help with that wording, but I do feel it should apply specifically and only to the PACG and not to just allow it to be a blanket statement for use of the artwork on whatever product they desire.
Then, everyone would be happy. If people make an awesome card, Paizo has the rights to reprint the text however they see fit; if someone uses awesome original artwork, Paizo can still even choose to use that card if they so desire, but the artwork holder is still the artwork holder, and they agreed that Paizo could use that artwork under those terms.
The other part that people seem to be a bit upset about is the thought that Paizo is making money off of the cards. If the above would happen, then nobody would have reason to be upset.
If you use the service to spread your own cards and artwork, you agree to it, otherwise, just don't use the service. It's really that simple.
The person that mentioned the statement in the original post is perfectly within all rights and privileges to decide not to use the service on whatever grounds they desire.
It seems that the part that some people are finding questionable is that it's not just the card design that's being transferred over; it's the artwork that was placed on the card, too.
If someone designs an awesome dragon picture and they decide to place it on a card, then that awesome dragon artwork is now property of Paizo, whereas, only the card design should be property of Paizo, and the dragon artwork should be noted that it was licensed (for free) to Paizo by the agreement that the user uploaded and placed said dragon on the card.
Vic posted on the other thread, that they've updated the language to confirm that this only applies to text, not art.
Yes. I do keep making that assertion. Perhaps erroneously. Until such time as it is made clear that this is not what is going on I will think that it is the case. . I have made it very clear that as far as I understand it it looks to be a certain way.Regardless of the reasons, the result is that Paizo is receiving profit from fan-created content.You continue to make this assertion, but I do not believe anybody has shown that this is, in fact, true.
Even if Paizo is making a profit, so what? They are providing you with a service (along with DTRPG) and if they make a profit off of it, it is not unethical. If you don't find the deal to your liking, that isn't unethical. It just means that you shouldn't take the deal. The card game isn't licensed under OGL or anything similar and Paizo isn't obligated to give you a way to profit from your card ideas. A lot of people don't want monetary compensation for their ideas. They enjoy sharing with others. There is nothing unethical about that.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Yeah I think the real key here is that you're not REQUIRED to make your ideas for card text public. You can keep them private. If they required that you have to share with the rest of the community to make a card, then I think there would be an ethics issue here. But they don't, so there's not. (IMHO)
I will add that it WOULD be unethical if Paizo was forcing home-designers to use the card creator. If they were sending C&D letters on homebrew games being posted elsewhere or even on their own forum. But they don't do that.
As it stands, if you don't want to use the card creator, you have other options. If you do use the card creator, it is likely that Paizo & DTRPG make a small profit off of it, which is acceptable considering the time and effort it took them to develop. I have only seen Paizo publicy state that the errata packs are sold at cost. I don't know what the final card counts were, but I do know that shortly before launch Vic posted prices and card counts that worked out to around $0.11/card. I know that the economies of scale are different between printing a card and printing 185 cards, but nearly 5x the cost? I would imagine that Paizo is making a profit here and that is perfectly fine. I don't imagine this will be a big revenue generator for them as the costs are so high most players will never bother with it. Heck, a significant percentage of players who don't visit Paizo daily and don't hang out on the message boards may not even be aware that it exists.
Paizo isn't forcing anyone. There is a difference between a creator crating something in a vacuum, and creating something in the wonderful world of Intellectual Properties.
Paying someone for their work, even automatically, is a way to condone and back what you're selling. Imagine someone designing a completely broken card, making Radillo's original power seem weak in comparison. Imagine hordes of players complaining about the card. Paizo would say "this is not an official card". Hordes of players would reply "but the creator was paid for their work, so it's an official product".
It's like when a fantastic artist decides to draw Spider-Man. No matter how fantastic his drawing is, he/she cannot market that art and sell it on a shirt or iPhone cover. Just like Marvel cannot use his design against his will, even if they own the Spider-Man IP. If it's a one-time only deal, and the design is truly fantastic, they might send lawyers to negotiate a mutually beneficial deal. But for something that would be mostly unchecked, and large-scale as the card creator aspires to be, it's not realistic to expect any company to shell out the logistics and costs required to make it work and double check (and send checks ;) ) to every single creator.
With that in mind, only two REALISTIC options, really: not wanting to bother, Paizo absolutely forbid the sale of any fan card by anyone else except the fan who designed them. You're basically paying DT & paizo for the right to print out your own designs with an official look, and that's the be all, end all of the service. Or the current system, where by default your cards are invisible, but you can make an informed choice to waive your creative rights to share them with the community and have DT and paizo earn a few microcents per card. And yes, have the (hopefully large number of) fans be "robbed" of the nine dollars and eight cents they would have made if they sold 1000 copies of "their" card. As long as it's an informed choice and not a default setting or something forced on everyone who uses that system, I strongly prefer option B, myself, but what do I know.
I am a writer, I literally live from my creative work, but expecting to manage micro-transaction payments on each and every user logging onto the system, for amounts that would probably struggle to reach an even dollar on any but the most successful cards is downright asinine. I do value creative work and creative worth, that's what putting bread in my mouth every month. I don't see this card creator system as unethical or a way to get rich and make money (the costs seems pretty close to printing costs). This seems more like a love letter to the fan, in a friendly spirit, than a deliberate desire to screw content creators. Realistically, the only other financially viable option would be not to allow it, and that would not really be an improvement to the community, IMHO. And as Vic said, I am sure that if a card or designer somehow becomes "visible" enough to warrant attention, Paizo will probably do their best to contact them and discuss something, like they've done for their RPG contests. At least so far they have not given me any obvious or reasonable reason to waive the benefit of the doubt to that regard. Live and let live :)
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I have only seen Paizo publicy state that the errata packs are sold at cost. I don't know what the final card counts were, but I do know that shortly before launch Vic posted prices and card counts that worked out to around $0.11/card. I know that the economies of scale are different between printing a card and printing 185 cards, but nearly 5x the cost? I would imagine that Paizo is making a profit here and that is perfectly fine.
The primary difference in pricing between the errata decks and Card Creator cards is this: the errata decks use a system that DriveThru already had in place, while the Card Creator cards use a system that DriveThru had to create for this project; the additional cost for Card Creator cards will hopefully eventually cover the cost of developing that system.
I won't say we're not making *any* money here; but I will say that I made it clear to DriveThru that Paizo's goal for the Card Creator is about encouraging the community, not about driving profit. That said, DriveThru hopes to make future use of this new system with other games that may be published by companies that *are* looking primarily for profit, and if we priced our cards exactly at cost, that would set a unprofitable price precedent that would make it hard for those publishers to follow suit. I essentially told Steve to come up with a number that he thought was workable, round it up, and basically just pass us the rounding. I *hope* that DriveThru recoups the time and effort they put into the system, and begins making a profit, and I hope that Paizo will eventually recoup the time and effort spent by the card team and the art department on it, but I don't frankly care that much about the last part—I just want it to help keep the game interesting for players.